Shelby's Big Birthday Bash!

Shelby had an amazing 9th birthday! The day started at G&G Carrells in Prescott. (How can any day started with pancakes and bacon be bad?)

Later in the day- Dawn threw an INCREDIBLE party for the birthday girl. Dawn and David's new house in Paradise Valley is gorgeous and Dawn is a great party planner. (I mean look at the decorations and the flower and butterfly cookies! The cupcakes were so good too!)

As far as our family goes- a party isn't a party without a pinata and this pinata was fabuloso!

Add on lots of family, a great pool and a really fun relay race and you have the perfect party!

After the other guests left, the kids went on the ultimate pirate treasure hunt. They couldn't have had any more fun! (Plus they looked so cute as pirates and Dawn's homemade treasure chest was amazing!) Thanks for making Shelby's birthday unforgettable Dawn!

Parties aside, I am so thankful for my Shelby. I will never forget the day she was born. Nor will I forget sending her to the nursery that evening so I could sleep. She came back 15 minutes later- screaming her little head off. (This same scenario happened twice!) The wonderful thing was that I only had to hold her and talk to her for a few seconds and the crying stopped. She knew me and knew that I loved her. I knew that Heavenly Father had sent a precious little person into my life. Shelby continues to be precious to our family, she fills our days with lots of laughter, noise and enthusiasm. We love you Shelby Lee!

A Nice Time with Nancy and others (it's nice to be nice to the nice...)

My sweet sister Nancy let Danny and the kids stay at her condo while I was at the NGR. Then she and I joined the rest of the Carrells and frolicked in Provo and Orem.

We had a lovely time walking around the Provo Temple. (Danny told the kids to see if they could find any couples ready to get engaged. It was hilarious to hear about the kids' and Danny's views on those we passed...)

Sadly, all of our traveling finally caught up with Mr. Carrell. He spend too much quality time in the restroom during the night time hours and the next day wasn't much better. So- the kids and I had fun with Nancy without him!

We even got to rendezvous with one of our favorite babysitters. Andrea Campbell is a wonderful girl who used to take care of our kids when we (and she) lived in N.Y. Now she is a student at BYU. So, we took her to lunch and had a great time. It's always fun to hear Andrea laugh.

After we left Utah Valley, we headed to Kaysville to see the McMurrays. (Danny was feeling better too- hurray.) We had a great time with Liesl and her cute kids. Brynn and Kailey continue to be wonderful friends! Thanks to all of you nicies for being so good to us... and thanks for the memories! (Isn't that what Bob Hope used to say? I vaguely remember watching Bob Hope specials with my mom and dad. Now I feel really old!)

Long live the NGR!

Every couple of years- some of the coolest women in the world come together for a weekend of fun and excitement. We call it the Nef Girls Retreat or NGR for short. We had a great time.

Mud masks really are so soothing!

Trisha, Albany, Karen and Madison, Nancy, Mom, Diane, Carly, Susan and Hillary- the Nef girls on Sunday.

Nancy, Karen, Mom, Susan and Diane. Lets do it again soon!

The Rest of the West

We spent a few lovely days in Elko, Nevada with the Pattons. They took us for a great hike up to Island Lake in the Ruby Mountains. It was lovely.

John even caught a fish. You can see that it was a whopper!

Why do the Pattons always look better in their pictures than we do in ours? It was Albany's 18th birthday- we so enjoyed spending it with her...

Then we went to Bountiful to see the Schmutzes and had so much fun with them. The kids did pudding finger painting with Aunt Susan.

And the girls LOVED slip and sliding in the backyard.
Thanks so much for the fun memories!

Idaho 2009

We spent the 4th of July weekend with Grandpa and Grandma Nef at the farm. We had a great time! We saw the Rupert Parade and Danny provided wonderful fireworks that evening. Danny and I also went to my class reunion for a few hours in between. (He didn't even complain very much.)

We spent time with lots of family and had a great picnic. Shelby, Claire and Em all had matching shoes, too.

All of the kids got rides on one of Grandpa's horses, but only Jake got to ride around the correl all alone on a horse.

Madison was able to become friends with some very important people- especially Grandpa Nef.

We were able to remember again how important family is. How blessed we are to have a great one!